


Resilience

by 221squee



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bamboo, pine, plum - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9943004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221squee/pseuds/221squee
Summary: Oh, when I was in love with youThen I was clean and brave,And miles around the wonder grewHow well did I behave.And now the fancy passes byAnd nothing will remain,And miles around they'll say that IAm quite myself again.-A.E. Housman





	

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for the eventual fates of three characters at the end of Captain America: Civil War.

"Li hing mui?" Tony held out the bag as Steve strode into his workshop. Steve was in jeans and a t-shirt, looked like he had just come from a malt shop, or a greaser knife fight at Griffith Observatory, something like that.

"Is that Chinese?" Steve asked.

"Yep. Cantonese. Means 'traveling plum'. They've got pits."

Steve tweezed his fingers into the cellophane bag and pulled out one of the red, powdery little things and popped it into his mouth. Was there any better reason for handing out food than to watch Steve put things in his mouth? Strike that. The best reason to hand out food was to watch Steve crinkle up his eyes at the corners and make a face.

"They're supposed to taste like this?"

"Yeah, salt, aspartame, all the stuff you want on plums." Tony popped another plum into his mouth, not wincing even in the slightest, and crossed his arms to stare at Steve. _Who's the tough guy now?_

"Mng. Yeah, right."

For a moment, Tony laughed to himself at Steve trying with all his patriotism, to politely acquire a taste for a food that could certainly be described as an acquired taste, and then Steve looked around the room and asked, "What's that piney smell?"

"Oh, I was just soldering a couple things on a circuit board. This is the rosin core solder." Tony held up a spool of the silver stuff. "It's got the flux inside the metal. Don't even have to paint flux on anymore, most of the time."

Steve shifted his hip along the edge of the work bench, and reaching, took the spool of solder out of his hand and examined it for a moment. He zizzed the end of his thumb back and forth along the little lead ridges. "It always looked like such a delicate little business when the radiomen were doing it."

"This? Not at all. You don't even need microscopes for this. You should see the stuff with the robot soldering. Now that's fiddly little stuff."

Steve shifted the plum pit in his mouth and focused in on Tony. "Is that something JARVIS does?"

"Ha! Oh, no, these aren't the smart kind of robots. They're just like those arms that put together cars. Although he could be said to be in charge of it to a degree when I send the suits to the CNC machines for fabrication. But I'm not doing that anymore. So," Tony said as he clapped his hands together, "in conclusion, not really."

Steve set the solder down and folded his arms. He looked around himself for a minute. He looked back at Tony. "What kind of wood are the floors made of here? I definitely don't remember seeing that kind before."

"That's bamboo. It's sustainable, grows four times as fast as oak or cherry, or even pine. Sequesters, ah, sequesters 70% more carbon than a hardwood forest." _Look up, look confident, no one will notice anything else. Look Steve right in the eyes._ "...Needs no irrigation, pesticides or fertilizer...very low VOC..." 

Tony found his mouth running on. It seemed Steve was standing closer. Was he closer? And Tony just couldn't stop talking. Really, Steve probably wasn't that interested in the specialty tools required to cut bamboo--nobody ever appreciated carbide bits the way they deserved, crying shame. _Ack, still talking. Still talking!_ Tony's monologue seemed to be some sort of positive feedback loop--the more nervous he got, the faster his pulse beat, and the faster he talked to keep up with it.

"Sir?" Why did Friday choose that exact moment to butt in?  
"Sir?" Tony jerked his head off the table and slid sideways off the stool. He looked around the empty lab as he stumbled up, holding out his hand. Friday's voice drifted down from the ceiling, as he wiped the side of his face to check for drool. "Sir, you wished to be awoken for Colonel Rhodes' physical therapy appointment."

"Right. Yes. On my way." Tony stood up straight, took a deep breath, and with barely a wobble, went out to face the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I would greatly appreciate if you would leave a criticism of this story. "You suck," is certainly a criticism, but I fervently hope you might leave something more specific, such as, "In such-and-such scene, I can't tell what sort of a room the characters are in, or how they're standing in relation to one another." Or, "Such-and-such detail is excessive, and contributes nothing to the story." Thanks again for reading!


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